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1) Such a society may have difficulty organizing in the face of an external threat.

A relatively realistic, albeit fictional account of an AnCap society resisting an external threat can be found here (http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/1416520724/1416520724___4.htm).

But I agree that unless such a contingency is planned for, it would be a problem. Which is why it would be planned for.

Every problem in an AnCap society is an opportunity for someone to find a solution to that problem. And even every solution is an opportunity for someone to come up with a cheaper solution. If you think an AnCap society wouldn't be able to organize to expend real resources on preparation for a threat that might not materialize, I would just point out that no known society is immune to that problem. But the general solution is to get as rich, prosperous, and technologically advanced as possible and hope that will make any problems, expected or not, easier to solve.

If you look at the relationship of governments to each other in our world, it's somewhat like an AnCap society. There isn't really any "super government" that rules them. And the UN and similar organizations are voluntary associations among those countries that can be abandoned by their members at any time. There isn't really any socially-accepted world policeman with any kind of monopoly and countries use both their economic and military might, both through threats and actions, to 'persuade' each other. The analogy isn't perfect, but it does give you an idea of how these kinds of things might go both wrong and right in an AnCap society.

Iraq faced a significant external threat in the form of a vastly militarily superior enemy with virtually unlimited resources.

Was government-organized defense more effective or was spontaneously-organized resistance more effective at preventing this external enemy from achieving its goals?

Great example. What's interesting about this example is that part of the reason the resistance was so effective was that it didn't have a command and control structure that could be seized. If you had to capture an AnCap society house by house, that would be a daunting task compared to just seizing the government of an already-conquered people.

Plus, it might not matter too much to people who rules them. If people don't see much difference between the two governments, then does it really matter that you were conquered. On the other hand, any conquering force would be a profound loss of freedom to an AnCap society. So there's more motive to defend. (For example, would Greek people care if France took them over? Maybe out of pride, but as a practical matter, there wouldn't be much difference.)

I don't know what "national defense" would look like in an AnCap society. But I have no reason to think it would be particularly difficult to come up with a way to do it.

The notion that disorganized resistance is more costly to fight than an army is accepted doctrine taught to military officers.

The objection that we need government for national defense is just bizarre grasping at straws. The teachings of the government's own war colleges contradict this.

Yes, exactly! Don't advocate what is right because it's too easy for someone to turn it upside down.

Would this not be solved by insurance?  If you live in Florida, your house insurance is probably higher due to hurricane risks.  When a hurricane hits, the insurance covers damages or goes bankrupt.  Not really much different now except that the government may kick in help, so you'd lose that safety net.  But hopefully, you have insurance & choose a reputable company.

Same could be done for defense.  You could purchase defense insurance.  It may be more expensive if you live near the border.  This insurance would pay for a patrolling submarine or F18.  Maybe setup SAM sites.  If there's a threat to insured persons/property, defense mechanisms could be activated.  Competing defense insurance companies could even collaborate to mark friendly aircraft to prevent friendly fire.  The rainy day fund could pay for more defense or to pay for damages.  If it went bankrupt or never had insurance, you could pay dues to a private army to protect you.  Lots of options.  Even competing options that could work together.

In general, AnCap removes a lot of those non-natural threats.  Not enough people willing to pay large sums for large armies when they can purchase nice cars, TVs, food, houses, etc.  Unfortunately w/ fiat currencies, we don't really get that choice right now.  And our countries can pretty much start fights w/ anyone without our consent.

Decades? why would it take so long? I think that once you remove the burdens of the state (which are enormous), we will have such services provided with higher quality and lower cost quickly filling the void. They will take time to mature, but will be superior, even in their infancy.

You don't seem to realise the inherent inefficiency in a violence based system, which is not accountable to the consumer. I don't accept the premise that we have an equilibrium now.

Really good point.

I guess a counter-argument would be what if that organized resistance never..well..organized?

People could simply not be willing to risk their lives entirely for the better quality of life they had before the invasion/occupation.

Why is that a problem?

If the entire population of a country decides that an invasion isn't worth resisting, that's their choice and it should be respected. Why should they be forced to fund defense if they don't actually want it?

There are a variety of actual problems with AnCap, if only because there are actual problems with all political systems. Here's one off the top of my head. (and I didn't write this, James A. Hammerton did; the essay is really about libertarianism in general, but it applies. Anyway, it's from here: http://web.archive.org/web/20010407063531/http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~james/politics/libcrit.txt )

"I will now discuss a consequence of the `freedom as absence of coercion'
position which makes it sit uneasily with libertarian ideology. If we
take this definition of freedom then the amount of freedom a person has is
the extent to which they can act without being coerced to do (or not to do)
something against their will. In a libertarian society you cannot
(legitimately) do anything with another's property if they don't want you to,
so your only _guaranteed_ freedom is determined by the amount of property you
have. This has the consequence that someone with no property has no
guaranteed freedom, and that the more property you have, the greater your
guaranteed freedom. In other words a distribution of property is a
distribution of freedom, as the libertarians _themselves_ define it.
Thus, taking this definition of freedom, and a belief in the free market
together, the libertarians are saying that the best way of promoting freedom
is to allow some people to have more of it than others, even when this leads
to some having very little or even none (as I believe is quite likely in a
free market). I don't think that this is what libertarians want, I think
they want everyone to have a sphere of equal guaranteed freedom, but a free
market does not give everyone such a sphere, and does not guarantee anyone
any freedom at all."

Also, on the subject of defense: Private defense firms could band together and establish oppressive mini-police states with little fear of reprisal. Considering that the "let's dominate those bitches and kick their fuckin' asses!" mentality is common among military personnel everywhere (this mentality is really just part of some people's innate nature, and these people are often drawn to the military), this doesn't seem too outlandish. Note that in Africa--where governments are so impotent that, for all practical purpose, they function quite a bit like anarcho-capitalist societies--military coups are rather common.

Seems like a group of people with 0.001% of military power will be a lot more civilized and strive to avoid conflict than a group with 10% or 60%.

This strikes me as somewhat bizarre. If someone advocates that women should be free to do what they wish with their bodies, are they then arguing that fat women should have more freedom than thin women since they have more body to what they wish with? The way freedom is being measured in this argument is incoherent, IMO.

looks very coherent to me and your analogy is totally off.
owned land directly translates into land you can do wantever you want on. size obsiously matters.
 owned functional entities translate into stuff that goes the way you want it to. say for example when you own the local swimming pool, you are free to ban whatever customers you don't want. so you are swimming with exactly the people you want to swim with, while everybody else only has the freedom to swim with the people YOU like or don't swim at all. and if you want to slide, it has a slide. you own the supermarket and choose what people eat. unless you get so absolutely weird that they boycott you. but within reasonable boundaries, you can influence the way the society works while people owning less can not. obviously you have more freedom.

...no.

While yes, if you own a swimming pool, you get to decide who can swim there, you don't get to decide who can swim in the other pools in town, and owning a supermarket doesn't mean you get to decide what people eat. For one thing, as with the pools, competition means there are other supermarkets to choose from, and if there's a demand for a particular food item, someone is going to provide it. You can only choose what people can buy from you, not from the other supermarkets. For another, if you sell things nobody wants, nobody will buy it. Since nobody buys it, you lose money. Lose enough money, and someone else is in control of that supermarket.

So, since you can't influence the way society works by owning something, where is this extra freedom you speak of?

- maybe there is only one supermarket in the vincinity
- you could own all supermarkets
- maybe all supermarkets belong to people of the same group, religion or whatever

all those cases are possible and pretty common actually.
rich people shape society right now. what makes you think that gets any less in a society with even less restrictions to what you are allowed to do with your property?

In my city, there are 3 Wal-Marts, a United, a Target, an Aldi, and a half-dozen to a dozen smaller markets. A nearby small town has two supermarkets, and two convenience stores. For things that they don't carry, the residents come here to purchase them. Even those three Wal-Marts carry different things, and different combinations of things.(Because they primarily serve different communities.)
I'm not even going to dignify the other two "possibilities" with an answer, the idea that every supermarket could or would be owned by the same monopoly individual or group is ridiculous.

OK... so you're complaining about... cheap milk? And who reads newspapers anymore?

This well may be the case, in at least some cases. It's hard to speculate on what an AnCap society might look like, and on what the proportion of soldiers would need to be, because no modern, developed nation has ever become AnCap. And btw, what makes you so sure that 0.001% of the population would be enough for security, assuming that's what you mean by that number (unclear post, btw)? Nazi Germany would have steamrolled a nation with such small defenses. And there have been many instances throughout history when a military has invaded a neighboring rival nation, and even though the invaders were only an infinitesimal fraction of the population being invaded, they still managed to keep them under total control. Well-trained, well-equipped soldiers just seem to have a knack for this. And sure, some AnCap citizens might have guns and stuff, but a lot of the citizens will be either unfit for or unwilling to do battle (children, olds, infirms, etc.), and besides, it's hard to take out an armored tank with a Glock pistol. In other words: It doesn't always take a lot of soldiers to take over a large population, so you'd better hope that your local defense agencies don't decide that it'd be fun to use that old-school gang tactic of enforcing a "protection tax" on every business in the area--and if you don't pay it, well, those "bad guys that we're protecting you from" (read: defense agency thugs disguised as common hooligans) are gonna bust your kneecaps with a crowbar! Also, as a side note: I just imagined Columbus, OH using its local army to invade Ann Arbor, MI, after one of the totally biased football referees blew a call in favor of the Wolverines. Implausible example, I know, but it's food for thought/extrapolation....

I should hasten to add that this is all hypothetical. I'm not saying that an AnCap society would necessarily become a police state. But it *could*, and if that happened, it'd qualify as an "actual problem." Also, another thought: Let's say that a cabal of private defense agencies took over Tallahassee, FL. Would Miami do anything to help, or would that be an unethical use of force?

And to return to the Iraq example: Sure, the insurgents did a pretty good job of defending themselves, all things considered, but the insurgents sure as hell weren't living the "good life of freedom" either (constantly hunted, hiding all the time, etc.). And the unique nature of that war--the (stupid) attempt by the US to try to "compassionately liberate" them by harming as few civilians as possible--isn't always how war goes. If the US wanted to nuke the fuck out of Iraq and take all the oil, it most certainly could. Don't get me wrong, I've been protesting the Iraq war since before it even started, but it stands as evidence that humans, while perhaps less stupid, cruel and violent than they once were (see that recent Steven Pinker book), they are still very capable of stupidity, cruelty and violence, and on epic scales. Will there be a Cold War II? Maybe, maybe not, but I wouldn't bank on it not happening, especially if you live in a society where there are lots of natural resources and other goodies to plunder, like the good ol' US of A. An AnCap society would have to find a way to prepare for this possibility (also, note that the Manhattan Project was basically a gov't program). Maybe it could, maybe it couldn't. All we can do is speculate.




Yeah, it is sorta like that, and it's also not an incoherent argument. In fact, your example aligns with it perfectly. The big difference is that your example doesn't address the broader implications. Yes, those women's bodies are their own private property with which they can do what they wish, and the ownership of one's own body is certainly integral to AnCap. But having your own private body is a given; everyone is born with that. Owning extra-bodily private property, on the other hand (e.g., land, business, belongings, etc.), is not a birthright--or rather, it is a birthright for some, but not for others, which skews the playing field from the get-go. This, I would contend, can in some cases (not all, of course) lead to an "actual problem."

Put another way: We're all born with our own bodies, but our freedom to exercise our bodies' capacities is severely limited if we don't own any extra-bodily private property that we have personal totalitarian control over; that's why Hammerton says that we are only truly free to the precise extent that we can reign supreme over our private property (the cornerstone of AnCap). Of course, part of the reason for one's lack of ownership might be laziness or ineptitude, which is within one's sphere of control (or, well, laziness certainly is). However, if we're born to parents that never acquired property and who can't afford to help out financially, we begin our adult lives stuck wandering through everyone else's property (i.e., everyone else's Micro-Totalitarian "property states"). Sure, we might be able to use our smarts/ambition to take some shit over and get our own property, but this is never a given, and even if it were, those who were born into lots of private property get a 10-mile head start in the proverbial marathon: you can run as hard as you want, but you still may not catch up with them, even if you're really fast. And unless you catch up and own some property, you are at the whims of everyone else. And yes, of course, people will let you use their property if they're generous or can make money from your usage/patronage of it, but their freedom will be far greater than yours, because they have the freedom to set the rules, and you don't. Examples: Pullman, IL in the 1800s, or a landlord who won't let you have pets or paint the walls, or a restaurant that won't serve you if you're black (and if it's a small town with only one restaurant, and you lack transportation, that'd really suck). And yes, you could always "vote with your feet" and leave Pullman Town or choose a different apartment or town, but it's not always that easy in reality (e.g., I don't consider "You can work in a sweatshop for 10 cents a day with a boss who rapes/beats you every morning, or you can starve to death in the streets" to be a real "choice"). And even if it were easy, you'd still have less freedom than the "owning class."

Research studies have been conducted that demonstrate the cause(s) of financial success in the USA (which is obviously not AnCap, but its mostly Cap, and I'd be willing to bet, for reasons I could explain if you wish, that these findings would be even more skewed in an AnCap society):

- Is willingness to work hard the best predictor of success? Answer: Nope, not really.

- Are academic success and SAT scores the best predictors? Nope, not those either.

- Well, pray tell, what is the best predictor? Answer: The wealth of the parents that you, luckily or not, happened to be a child of. That's why we have things like Pell grants, which do indeed "steal" from the affluent, but are aimed at (partially) leveling the playing field for the next generation.

And again, this is not to say that AnCap is entirely flawed. All political systems are flawed in some way. But it is to say that it doesn't always distribute freedom perfectly efficiently. Undoubtedly, there many are people out there who are smarter, more talented, and more ambitious than Tagg Romney, but they're not yet able to fully exercise their freedom through property ownership. And even if they do, few will ever attain the freedom-level of Tagg. Why? because Tagg got a lucky roll of the dice, which has nothing to to with actual merit. For every "rags to riches" story, there probably 10 (or 100, or 1000) "rags to more rags" stories, and many of these people busted their asses their whole life but were still beholden to the whims of property owners.

Just realized that that is totally tl;dr (I get carried away sometimes). But I should point out that this debate is speculative, and will likely remain speculative. If AnCap was a good way to (un)govern a state, one would think that it would have caught on somewhere in the marketplace of sovereign states. If Medieval Iceland is the only example of AnCap--and even that is subject to dispute--it doesn't seem to bode well. Hell, Milton Friedman and his Chicago boys had an opportunity to create an extremely libertarian state that would be enforced by a dictator, and even that ended up quite a bit of statism involved (e.g., Chile's version of Social Security is privatized, but it is very tightly regulated).

The Iraqi resistance is anything but disorganized. They have weapon-smuggling channels from other Arab states, they Al Queda and other religious organisations providing training and men. In fact, they have a pretty significant command-and-control structure, it's just that it's very branched and asymmetric.

This and your previous post I thank you for :) was a good read!

But they didn't need a government to create that organization, did they?

They are pretty much a government. They have hierarchical leadership, they have coercive power, they impose taxes (not monetary perhaps, but definitely service). The fact that they are not de jure recognized doesn't really matter much. Hell, they have a strict fundamentalist ideology, which they enforce quite brutally. The Iraqi insurgency is definitely not a bunch of happy AnCap fellows.

Here's my question re: external threats

Who would negotiate with the foreign power?

In order to get everyone to rally to the defense of the country, there has to be unity of purpose.  There has to be consensus that there is, in fact, a war going on.

Without a government, there would presumably be no restrictions on immigration.  There would be no restrictions against those immigrants importing weapons.  So, foreign troops entering the country is not inherently a hostile act.  There are always going to be racist nutcases claiming that every visitor is an invader, so people would get used to ignoring them.  With a misinformation and propaganda campaign, a genuine invading force could conceal their purpose for some time.

A government could give an ultimatum to a foreign power, that would lead to either the removal of the troops or a formal declaration of war.  In an anarchist society, how do you distinguish between defending your freedom and committing terroristic acts against foreign tourists?

And what if their purpose is not to enslave the country, but to destroy a specific organization within the country that committed some crime against them?  Are we expected to give our lives fighting for some terrorist cell that happens to be hiding out within our country?  But if we don't, we have no sovereignty.

And then who decides when the war's over?  The foreign power has withdrawn their forces, but there's no one to sign a peace treaty.  So when can we resume trade without being considered guilty of treason?  How long do we let the privateers rob and kill people from the other country?

The idea definitely intrigues me, and if someone can explain how an anarchist society achieves some kind of unity of purpose, I would love to hear it.

It's actually several, and I'll answer each individually.

What's to negotiate? Even if there were someone to do the negotiating, the only demands would be to stop attacking, and to pay restitution to the victims. There would be no concessions or compromises on those demands.

Not really. Tanks rolling down the street make it pretty obvious. Nation states have a tendency to announce these sorts of things, anyway.

True, foreign troops entering the country is not an inherently hostile act. In fact, it would likely happen with a fair amount of regularity, especially if the neighboring nation-states had military bases on their borders. Soldiers like to party, and what better place to party than a place where no intoxicant is illegal? A large group of them might even be welcomed... until they started shooting. At which point they are aggressors, and will be treated as such. But no matter the size of the invading force, they'll still need to "conquer" every house, if they want to "win" the war.

Simple. Until they start shooting, the soldiers are foreign tourists. If/when they start shooting, then they get shot in return.

If an "Al-queda" were hiding out in an AnCap region, they would have the same protection as anyone else. Of course, if they have committed a crime elsewhere, even their protection agency would likely assist the foreign police force. Keep in mind, of course, that they might not have the same definition of "crime" as the foreign police force. A terrorist act certainly qualifies, selling drugs would not.

Treason? Privateers? These words have little or no meaning in an AnCap society. That's the secret to winning the "war." Trade would continue, even with the invading soldiers, most likely. As long as they act peacefully, they're welcome to come and trade. And people who rob and kill people from the nation-state receive no sanction, and no pardon, from the AnCap region. They are never "allowed" to do that. Essentially this all boils down to the fact that in order for a state of war to exist, you need two nation-states. An AnCap region would have no beef with the nation-state itself, since that's no more an entity that you can be mad at than is Coca-Cola. Certainly they'd have nothing against the populace of the nation-state. The individual soldiers, on the other hand, are the ones committing acts of aggression. They're the ones with whom there's a problem, and only because they're acting with aggression.

Well, your best bet for "unity of purpose" is a defense company. Since it will be their subscribers being attacked, it will be them leading the charge to repel the aggressors. They might even have a clause in their contract which gives a discount to subscribers who agree to serve as a "militia" in the event of an invasion. Call it the "minuteman clause."

Negotiate what? There are definitely answer, but they are all going to be fact intensive.

I think you are reasoning based on a notion of "immigration" that doesn't make sense in this context.

You would distinguish by looking at whether the use of force was offensive or defensive.

They do it whatever way they think best. I don't think anyone could predict what that way would actually be, and it might depend critically on what organizations serve what purposes and have what interests. If all grocery stores and restaurants in the world were government owned and operated, could you predict what a free market food system would look like? At best, you could guess.

@myrkul - So, if I understand correctly, the plan is basically to pretend that the nation-state doesn't exist and that everyone is acting as an individual?

Not in a country where tanks are sold for recreational use.  Nation-states tend to announce when they're invading another Nation-State, because it tends to be rather noticeable in the first place since there's no other reason their forces would cross the borders.  Contrast that with the way that many colonial governments exercised their power over indigenous tribes, which as I understand it tended to be a much less formal process.

This strikes me as an example of something that would need to be negotiated.  Someone needs to decide whether or not the foreign police force has probable cause to suspect any given member of the cell, and that anyone rendered to the foreign government will receive a fair hearing and an appropriate penalty.  Does the defense agency do all this?


Thanks, this is something I didn't understand about the AnCap position.

However, it strikes me as extremely problematic from a military point of view.  The AnCap forces would be extremely handicapped if they have to give every single individual the benefit of the doubt.  No attacking supply lines as long as the truckers leave the fighting to others.  A bomber is approaching overhead.   We can't identify the crew, so we don't know if any of them have committed aggression.  Ok, now the bomber has started to bombard the city.  Can we shoot now, or maybe that was the work of a rogue on the crew without the sanction of the others?  If nothing else, you'd never have the initiative.  I can't imagine it would be easy to convince everyone to stick to high-minded non-aggression ideals.


The reason I mentioned privateers is because I pictured the defense being a chaotic, disorganized effort, with groups of volunteers inflicting whatever damage they can.  However, it seems like you're saying it would be the opposite, fought by defense companies practicing a superhuman level of restraint and discipline to ensure only the guilty are harmed.

Thanks, I have learned something.

Explain?

Questions that might come up concerning a private food system are:
-How do they feed poor people?
-How do they make sure their customers are eating a healthy diet?

And the answer is "They don't."  People turn to other organizations for these things.  The question of how an AnCap society stays and AnCap society needs a better answer than that, because there would be no one else.

More or less. What you maybe don't realize is that effectively, the nation-state doesn't exist. None of them do. It really is just individuals. "Just following orders" didn't work in Nuremberg, and it won't work here, either.

As to the negotiating to get the terrorist group out, that's what arbitration is for.

And the bomber and other judgment calls like that are things that the individuals doing the defending are going to have to decide for themselves... and live with the consequences of their actions, or inaction. For myself, I'd consider that first bomb justification to open fire. I'd also be talking to (or at least at) the crew, letting the know that we're peaceful, but that dropping any bombs will result in their destruction, and they should turn back.

You are confusing an evil with who is responsible for that evil. If you are an evil aggressor, and in fighting you my best option is to shoot an innocent person, then I'll do that, and that is an evil. But it is *your* evil, not *my* evil. My force, even if aimed at an innocent, is still retaliation against your aggression. There is no evil in choosing the option that minimizes evil.

The classic hypothetical is the "shoot through the hostage" example: If an evil madman has a finger on a button that will blow up a school full of children, you may certainly shoot him through a hostage. And the murder of the innocent hostage is a terrible evil. But it's not *your* evil. You have no superior option and your optimum response can never be an evil on your part. What you've done is you've done the good of reducing the madman's evil from causing the death of a school full of children to causing the death of one hostage.

Here is where Joel and I disagree. (I suspect this is why he supports a minarchist state.) You've still done evil, and need to recompense for that, but it's less than the evil that would be done had you done nothing, so it's worth it.

I'll give you a hypothetical: You are very poor but carry a gun. A madman is holding an innocent woman hostage. He also has his hand on a button that will blow up a school full of kids. You are essentially 100% certain he will push the button, the bomb will work, and at least 100 kids will be killed. You are nearly certain you can shoot him and kill him before he pushes the button, but you have to shoot him through the hostage, which you are nearly certain will kill her. What should you do?

So what is the right thing to do in the "shoot through the hostage" case? Do nothing and allow the evil madman to blow up the school full of kids? Shoot the woman and be financially and criminally responsible for her death?

My position is that you should shoot through the hostage. This is the choice that minimizes coercion against innocent people. The death of the innocent woman is an evil, but it the madman's evil. You performed the good of reducing his evil -- reducing evil is good.

And I'm not really quite sure it's correct to say I support a minarchist state. I think we should keep shrinking the state so long as it seems sensible to do so and continues to provide benefits. I am not certain where we will wind up stopping. But unless I can convince you to come over to my way of thinking, I presume you'd believe that the only moral thing to do is to completely eliminate all government services and functions immediately -- this second if possible -- regardless of how much chaos, damage, and loss of innocent lives results.

In that case, the hostage being "murdered" would be considered so if 1) the 'murderer' is the bomber, under the felony murder rule (anyone who dies in the commission of a felony, even if they died at a good Samaritan's hand, is considered to be murdered by any/all remaining criminal conspirators) and 2) the shot through the hostage even caused death, when handgun wounds have a rather low mortality rate (20% or less). Plus, if you're trying to shoot through a hostage to a hostage-taker, and you're a good shot, the vital organs of the hostage shouldn't exactly overlap the HT's, so you might be shooting through a non-vital area to get to a vital one. If you're not going for a headshot in hopes of a one shot stop, and waiting for the HT to drift into your sights.

Otherwise, if the hostage were to die, the bomber will have committed felony murder, and the good Sam homicide, but an entirely excusable homicide, if it were obvious the HT had command det wire going to a bomb or you saw the bomb had a cellphone or other radio receiver, antennas attached to it.

I would never be anywhere near certain shooting through a hostage would kill her, considering the aforementioned mortality rate. If you're shooting a HT in the head, you don't shoot the hostage in the head first, because 1) you most likely don't carry a handgun with enough oomph to get through the hostage's skull AND the HT's enough for a one shot stop and 2) if you carry a rifle (unlikely outside theater), you have an easier time aiming around the hostage's vitals. Hell, if the HT is showing his detonator, shoot him in the fricking hand that's holding it.

Fine, then... "accept," rather than "support."


Yeah, pretty much this. If you have to shoot through the hostage, their vitals aren't likely lined up. If you're going to shoot the hostage anyway, you can also shoot them in the leg. That removes the hostage from the equation, while limiting the damage they suffer, and reducing the chances of killing them to stop the hostage taker. The box: Think outside it.

"reducing evil is good". i guess that pretty much sums up why rule-based ethics and absolute assessements like "good" and "evil" suck.
i propose a simple solution: you do assess who or what you value more and decide in its favor. otherwise you will always fail to get a satisfying answer to this dilemma. for example, you can just reduce the number of children. at which point does the life of the woman get more important? or replace the children with cute bunnies and kittens: would you kill the woman for a single bunny? or not even for all the bunnies and kittens in the world?
there is just no fundamental answer to this kind of question inside absolute ethics that, in all possible cases, accords with everybodies sense of "just" or "the right thing do to".
forget the notion of "the right thing" and do what you consider best. if you can't stop yourself, bath in self-pity or self-righteousness according to the rules of your chosen ethic afterwards. but please do it silently.

You've identified a problem with utilitarianism, not with ethics itself.

i didnt claim i did.
and the ethic they are arguing about is not utilitarianism. i didnt point out any problems regarding utilitarianism.

I would really like to hear your answer to the hypothetical rather than your answer to some alternate hypothetical. In the hypothetical, shooting through the hostage is nearly certain to kill both the hostage and the madman.

We reject your fantasy-world hypothetical and substitute our own from reality.

I can neither agree with your position nor disagree with it if I don't understand it, and I don't understand it. If you can find some other way to explain it to me such that I understand it, please do.

We can't understand why you have such absolute certainty in your world that there is no way to kill a hostage-taker without killing their hostage, when it's already been explained that it is highly unlikely under any circumstance and specifically why.

Okay, I give up. I could try to construct a more realistic hypothetical that asks the same question, maybe where you have a button you can push that blows them both up or something, but there doesn't seem to be any point. I'll prefer to try to understand people who are willing to make at least as much effort to help me understand them as I'm willing to make to try to understand them.

That's a bit like saying "Bitcoins don't exist, they're just data on some hard drives."

The idea of the nation-state exists.  The aggregate behavior of the people who believe in the nation-state make it a tangible force.  You have a large group of people who will more-or-less abide by the decisions of a smaller group of decision makers.  Each individual in the state may be believed to be morally responsible for their own actions, but in practice the easiest way to stop the violence would be to change the minds of the decision makers, or remove them from power.

Earlier someone brought up the Iraq war as an example of a decentralized force defeating a larger, better equipped and organized force.  Like many forces in similar positions in history, they did this by fighting in pretty much the opposite manner than you are advocating.  

I really don't see how you can expect people to ignore the fact that the invaders are part of an organized, united force.  I suppose it's not that different from how law enforcement deals with gangs, but it still seems like kind of a disadvantage in a total war scenario.

While we're on the topic, what about land registry?  I asked this in another thread, but I never followed up on the answer I received, which is that it doesn't need to be a monopoly.  I don't see how it could not be.  Each bit of land can only be owned by one person, so all registries have to be in accord.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/000/554/facepalm.jpg
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108263.msg1211708#msg1211708

True enough, the nation-state exists in that same place Santa Claus does... in the minds of those that believe. And to stop the "war," the best bet would be to get the decision makers to realize they're not going to win it without annihilating the population, so they'll leave. But in dealing with the soldiers, it's best to treat them like individuals and deal with their actions on a case-by case basis.

That's not to say they wouldn't be kicked out... if they took someone's land by force to set up their camp. You can find an interesting story about what might happen if a nation-state invaded an AnCap area here (http://www.webscription.net/chapters/1416520724/1416520724___4.htm). It's sci-fi, but the only real sci-fi element is Vinge's "bobble" stasis fields, which don't play much role in the story.

Indeed they would. Thus, they'd need to be in communication. It would be pretty simple to set up a federated network of registries.

That addresses a different hypothetical (where you don't know if shooting will kill the hostage or not). I asked you to address my hypothetical and you refused. I'm not sure what you want me to do. I don't understand your position and you refused my attempt to clarify it.

In my hypothetical (you are nearly certain that shooting will kill both the madman and the hostage and that if you don't shoot, the hostage will live but 100 children will die), should you shoot through the hostage? And if so, are you liable to the hostage's family?

Although I think you and I may agree that you should and you are not liable, the madman is. I think it's Myrkul I disagree with. I believe his position is that if you shoot and kill the hostage, you are legally and morally responsible for that death.

I agree, but that doesn't matter.

The problem is that other people will also judge you and if they find you initiated force, they will hold you responsible. Although I do believe it's unreasonable to expect perfection out of people operating under unusual conditions caused by the coercive actions of others. If I point a gun at your head, it is not reasonable for others to hold your response to a standard of perfection on pain of legal liability. And if you are less than perfect, that is largely my fault for pointing the gun at you, not your for responding the best you could.

And I agree with you this is not utilitarianism. That the best one can do is pick the possible action that maximizes the good and minimizes the bad is independent of how you determine what is good and what is bad. Utilitarianism is about how you measure whether and to what extent something is good.

Very well, let's assume I'm carrying a huge DE .50 cal pistol loaded with explosive rounds. Shooting the hostage will almost certainly kill them. Let's also assume that I have not practiced enough to hit the bad guy without hitting the hostage as well. My only choice, therefore is between killing the hostage or letting the children die.

The choice is clear, I take the shot. But since it was my decision to bring my biggest pistol with me today, and my choice to load it with explosive rounds, and my choice not to train enough to hit a head-sized target at that distance, and my finger that pulled the trigger, yes it most certainly is my responsibility that the hostage died. Now, the mitigating circumstances - the bus-load of kids, the terrorist holding them hostage, etc - will reduce the liability, but ultimately I pulled the trigger, and it's my responsibility. The family will understand, the "law," whether an arbiter or the state, will understand, and certainly everyone will agree I did the right thing. But that doesn't completely relieve me of responsibility. Guilt, yes. Not responsibility.

Own your actions. All of them.

And in more concise terms presented above, that is why I called your hypothetical that of a fantasy world, JK. To my knowledge, explosive .50DE rounds do not exist, so please shift your knowledge of guns and ammunition away from video games and other fiction, JK. It is simply not possible in any hypothetical applied to reality to carry a handgun and ammunition that you would be "nearly certain" of killing the hostage that you shoot through. Exactly the opposite; I would be "nearly certain" of NOT killing the hostage in all possible hypothetical realities.

You may as well have hypothesized: if pigs suddenly started flying, would you suddenly view them as holy creatures despite your non-Jew/Muslim religion and regular diet of pork, and stop eating them henceforth? It's a hypothetical that I don't need to understand, or respect the creator of for anything other than comedy writing, because it is rooted in fantasy.

I guess I'm not sure what you mean by "responsibility". I think it's silly to argue that you are in any sense "responsible" for the unforseeable consequences of actions you had every right to take.

Since pulling the trigger was the best posisble act under the circumstances, it would be a credit, not a responsibility. You could not conceivably have done better. Why is that not enough?

Exactly.

If by responsibility, you mean the credit for doing the best possible thing, then I agree. If you mean something else, I don't.

Indeed.

Under those circumstances, I could indeed have done no better. But a good number of those circumstances were under my direct control. My choice of an elephant gun as my daily carry. My choice of explosive rounds as a defensive load. My choice of carrying a weapon I am not expert in. My choice of using that weapon to defend those kids. It would not be my fault that the hostage had died. It would still be my doing, and thus, my responsibility.

A much more likely situation is that the weapon is loaded with frangible rounds, a much more sensible defensive load. Of course, this still precludes shooting through the hostage, since frangible rounds have been known to break up from hitting much lighter cover. So it behooves you to know how to shoot well enough to shoot around cover. Or not get involved in hostage situations.

These are the things you have to think about before you strap on a weapon. It's not just a show-piece. It's not a toy. It's a very powerful tool. You need to know how, and even more importantly, when, to use that tool, and you need to accept - and expect - the consequences of that use.

Again, I utterly reject the notion that a person is responsible for the unforeseeable consequences of actions he had every right to take. If you choose to go to 7-11 to get a Slurpee and as a result of having to wait for you to pass, a car full of kids misses a traffic light and happens to be in the path of a drunk driver, you bear *no* responsibility for accident. None whatsoever. I utterly reject "but for" causation as a moral theory. Yes, had you not gone to 7-11, there would have bee no accident. But that is *not* a moral test.

You can load your weapon with whatever rounds you like. If you want to load explosive rounds for target practice and that happens to be all you have when a need for defense comes up, so be it. Unless you have chosen to take on some defensive obligation, you have no obligation to be ready for effective defense. The person who chooses to place you in that situation by choosing to use force must take moral responsibility for the world as he finds it.

No. If you want to strap on a gun with explosive rounds, even if that's horrible for self-defense, you have the absolute right to do that. If that means you aren't prepared for optimal self-defense, then so be it. You have no obligation to attune your actions so that you can more effectively defend others. You can do what you want so long as you choose not to use force. And when you do need to pull your gun, the person who forced you to do that rolled the dice by doing so. All anyone has any right to expect from you is that you do your best, and so long as you do, the fallout is all on their tab.

And here is the core of our disagreement, Joel. You are responsible for your choices as well as your actions. Sure, going to the 7-11 doesn't make you responsible for the drunk driver slamming into the car full of kids, but if you load explosive rounds into a handcannon as your daily defense carry, yes, you're responsible for killing anyone you shoot with it.

Let me set a hypothetical for you, Joel: If I choose as my daily defense weapon a nuclear bomb, is it my responsibility for all the death and destruction caused when I use it, or does the responsibility fall to the punk mugger that I was trying to kill?

The responsibility falls on you because choosing to transport a nuclear bomb requires you to take extreme measures to ensure you don't place others at unreasonable risk. At a minimum, you would need controls to prevent a stressful situation, such as being mugged, from causing you to deploy the bomb in error. When the potential harm is so extremely great, the realm of possible accidental scenarios you are expected to foresee is much greater.

This is why we require people to put fences around swimming pools and guards around nuclear reactors.

You are always responsible for everything you do. However, choosing to carry a gun with explosive rounds is well within your rights. It does not good to say "you have the right to do X, but if someone else's actions result in your doing X causing harm, you are responsible". This is functionally equivalent to "you have no right to do X".

Say I publish a cartoon mocking the prophet and it causes other people to attack an embassy and kill an ambassador, am I responsible? If so, doesn't that effectively mean that I have no right to publish such a cartoon?

Tracer and incendiary ammo≠explosive.

Where the frack are these "explosive rounds" that everyone can load in pistols that exist in reality outside, maybe, a CAD program?

They're not here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raufoss_Mk_211
.50BMG (12.7×99mm NATO)≠.50AE, simply put: heavy rifle round vs pistol round.

You really don't like hypotheticals, do you? We're just using "explosive rounds" to mean something that can be used for self-defense but presents a greater risk of harm to innocent bystanders when used in that way. The idea is that you can defend yourself and minimize harm, but because of other bizarre previous choices you've made, you don't minimize the harm as much as you otherwise could have.

I would argue that unless you somehow have an obligation to minimize harm caused by your defense (as you would if you were hired to defend people or choose to carry nuclear weapons), you needn't structure your life to minimize the harm other people's choice to initiate force may cause. You are free to live your life as you please so long as you don't choose to initiate force, and if others choose to initiate force, your obligation is to do the best you can under those circumstances. If you cause harm by reasonably defending yourself given the circumstances under which you are threatened, the blame and liability goes to the one who chose to force you to defend yourself.

Choosing to carry a nuke is well within your rights as well. But you're responsible for what you do with it. If you kill someone because you chose to carry a nuke as your defense weapon, or if you chose to carry a handgun loaded with explosive rounds, then you're responsible for that action. Remember that the hostage taker did not cause the hostage to get shot. Pulling the trigger caused the hostage to get shot. Who pulled the trigger?

Publishing the cartoon didn't cause the embassy to get attacked, any more than the hostage taker caused the hostage to get shot. Once again, the guy behind the trigger has responsibility, even if someone told him to, still his responsibility.

Yeah, I know, consistency. It's a pain.


Relax, man... I pulled the "explosive rounds" thing out of my ass to explain how I could guarantee killing both hostage and bad guy with one shot. Perhaps a better example would have been a grenade launcher... but who the hell brings a GL as their daily defense carry?

This is a totally vacuous statement that doesn't address my criticism of your position.

The hostage taker did cause the hostage to get shot. Pulling the trigger also caused the hostage to get shot. The difference is that pulling the trigger was the best possible response.

If there's no liability or responsibility for publishing the cartoon, how can there be liability or responsibility for choosing to carry a weapon that's not suitable for safe defense?

With luck, you'll keep working on it.

Cute. With luck, you'll eventually see that I'm the one being consistent.

It's not the carrying of the weapon. It's the use. Actions, not words, carry responsibility. You're perfectly within your rights to cart a grenade launcher around. If you try to use that to resolve a hostage crisis, though, you're going to have to explain why you chose to blow up the hostage along with the hostage taker. That's why you need to carry a weapon you can actually use... like a pistol.

The benefit to carrying a grenade launcher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M79_grenade_launcher) is that not only do you blow up the hostage-taker, you also blow up yourself in the explosion (if you modify the M406 round to arm sooner than the default 30 meters - which you'd want to do for typical defensive confrontation range), so the death of the hostage and assigning blame thereof is really a moot point if you've suicided.

Well, there is that, too. :D

i think one of the reasons this discussion isn't very productive is that you guys talk about different levels of "judgement".

1 - personal: what you feel is right or wrong
2 - society: what a majority in a specific society considers right or wrong
3 - legal: what is (or should be) considered a crime in a specific society
4 - absolute: what is considered wrong or evil by a religion or other institution claiming absolute moral authority

specifically, it's hard to tell, if denying responsibility is only meant on a legal level or if, for example, joel claims that, as soon as somebody does something "evil" he isn't responsible for his actions on any level anymore.
in my opinion, even at the risk of agreeing with myrkul, on a personal level, you are always responsible for everything you do. both regarding any direct consequences and any consequences that you could have foreseen. meaning if you choose to be ignorant about something and in consequence lack the necessary knowledge to make a good decision at some point in the future, thats also your responsibility.
if you take that far enough, it's also clear that responsibility is basically infinite. which in turn means that you have to decide the limits of your responsibility individually. as long as your law and society accepts that, do what you want.

Well, that's the risk you have to take...;) Eventually, unless your response to everything is, "More laws! Bigger government!" you're going to agree with a libertarian about something.

I don't think responsibility is infinite, but it definitely goes a lot farther than most people like to accept.

So, let's say you can't see what the switch could possibly be connected to (by wire or with an obvious wireless receiver attached to a bomb). Whether or not it appears to be a negative or positive pressure switch.

Then you just handle it as a typical human shield hostage situation. Never drop your gun, never lower your gun, keep the HT generally in your sights and wait as long as it takes for a clear shot (or one that will be unlikely to kill the hostage if you are confident to shoot through their non-vital areas and hit the vitals of the HT), then take it. Drop or lower the gun, and the HT has all the power. Even if the hostage is wounded (no matter who does it), they will likely drop (or be dropped, as dead weight) to the ground, then you take the totally clear shot, stop the threat, and provide/call for medical aid for the hostage.

If you intend to shoot through the hostage, you better have FMJ and not HP if you want the round to overpenetrate and maintain enough energy to dump into the HT.

Nobody expects people to be perfect.